Glenn Greenwald -- The suppressed fact: deaths by U.S. torture

[balantz]

Glenn Greenwald

Tuesday June 30, 2009 12:31 EDT
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/30/accountability/


The suppressed fact: deaths by U.S. torture



After numerous delays sought by the Obama administration, it is expected that a 2004 CIA Inspector General's Report -- aggressively questioning both the efficacy and legality of Bush's interrogation tactics -- will be released tomorrow. A heavily redacted version of that document was already released by the Bush administration in response to an ACLU lawsuit and it remains to be seen how much new information will be included in tomorrow's version.

In anticipation of the release of that report, there is an important effort underway -- as part of the ACLU Accountability Project -- to correct a critically important deficiency in the public debate over torture and accountability. So often, the premise of media discussions of torture is that "torture" is something that was confined to a single tactic (waterboarding) and used only on three "high-value" detainees accused of being high-level Al Qaeda operatives. The reality is completely different.

The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder.

The record could not be clearer regarding the fact that we caused numerous detainee deaths, many of which have gone completely uninvestigated and thus unpunished. Instead, the media and political class have misleadingly caused the debate to consist of the myth that these tactics were limited and confined. As Gen. Barry McCaffrey recently put it:

We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.

- clip -

[JustinL]

1. k&r

[dccrossman]

2. We must enforce our own laws

I hate that this took so long to come out, but I still appreciate that it is, at long last, being released.

Despite certain people's resolve to "look forward, not back", you can't understand where you're going until you grapple with where you've been. We need to do this, as a country, whether we want to or not.

:kick: